Today’s purchase: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

My Dividend Farm got an upgrade today. I opened a new position, this time in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. You’re never gonna guess, but the company is based in Canada … and it’s a bank.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

I picked up a share of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM) for $91.51. It was my first … and it’ll go nicely with the three other Canadian banks in my portfolio. I also own Royal Bank of Canada (RY), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) and Bank of Montreal (BMO). CM and TD will pay me quarterly in January, April, July and October. RY and BMO, meanwhile, schedule their quarterly payments for February, May, August and November.

All four have dividend yields well above 3%, but CM may just be the best in the bunch. For starters, its yield is 4.52% while the other three are in the 3.5-3.9% range. The payout ratio (46.26%) isn’t all that high, either. You know what that means right? Yup, despite the already juicy dividend yield, the bank could easily boost it. It’s done just that each of the last seven years.

Aside from the high divi yield and manageable payout ratio, Canadian Imperial is also making a ginormous amount of money … something like $11.24 per share in the last year. Combine that with a 25% profit margin and you have a recipe for a long run of solid performance for shareholders to go with the dividend I just talked about. Not a bad one-two punch.

As if I needed another reason to pull the trigger, the company seems to be a good value at its current price, which is basically right between its 52-week low and 52-week high. The P/E ratio is a low 10.25 and the price/book ratio is an equally appetizing 1.91 – both numbers value investors can appreciate.

Not only is Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce making an absurd amount of money, but it’s growing its earnings as well. The company reported decent EPS growth of 11.21% (last quarter verses the same quarter from the previous year).

As you can see, I like CM … a lot. The Canadian banks have been good to me so far, and I’m hoping that trend continues for a long, long time to come.